The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages A.D. 500-1600

The European Discovery of America #1

by Samuel Eliot Morison

A great historian and a superb prose stylist presents in these pages a comprehensive and brilliantly readable account of all known voyages across the North Atlantic to the New World prior to 1600, and of the intrepid mariners, and the adventurers who sent them forth.

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction, European History, American, World History, Maritime

712 pages, Hardcover

First published April 15, 1971

About the author

Samuel Eliot Morison, son of John H. and Emily Marshall (Eliot) Morison, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on 9 July 1887. He attended Noble’s School at Boston, and St. Paul’s at Concord, New Hampshire, before entering Harvard University, from which he was graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1908. He studied at the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques, Paris, France, in 1908-1909, and returned to Harvard for postgraduate work, receiving the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1912. Thereafter he became Instructor, first at the University of California in Berkeley, and in 1915 at Harvard. Except for three years (1922-1925) when he was Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford, England, and his periods of active duty during both World Wars, he remained continuously at Harvard University as lecturer and professor until his retirement in 1955.

He had World War I service as a private in the US Army, but not overseas. As he had done some preliminary studies on Finland for Colonel House’s Inquiry, he was detailed from the Army in January 1919 and attached to the Russian Division of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, at Paris, his specialty being Finland and the Baltic States. He served as the American Delegate on the Baltic Commission of the Peace Conference until 17 June 1919, and shortly after returned to the United States. He became a full Professor at Harvard in 1925, and was appointed to the Jonathan Trumbull Chair in 1940. He also taught American History at Johns Hopkins University in 1941-1942.

Living up to his sea-going background – he has sailed in small boats and coastal craft all his life. In 1939-1940, he organized and commanded the Harvard Columbus Expedition which retraced the voyages of Columbus in sailing ships, barkentine Capitana and ketch Mary Otis. After crossing the Atlantic under sail to Spain and back, and examining all the shores visited by Columbus in the Caribbean, he wrote Admiral of the Ocean Sea, an outstanding biography of Columbus, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1943. He also wrote a shorter biography, Christopher Columbus, Mariner. With Maurico Obregon of Bogota, he surveyed and photographed the shores of the Caribbean by air and published an illustrated book The Caribbean as Columbus Saw It (1964).

Shortly after the United States entered World War II, Dr. Morison proposed to his friend President Roosevelt, to write the operational history of the US Navy from the inside, by taking part in operations and writing them up afterwards. The idea appealed to the President and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, and on 5 May 1942, Dr. Morison was commissioned Lieutenant Commander, US Naval Reserve, and was called at once to active duty. He subsequently advanced to the rank of Captain on 15 December 1945. His transfer to the Honorary Retired List of the Naval Reserve became effective on 1 August 1951, when he was promoted to Rear Admiral on the basis of combat awards.

In July-August 1942 he sailed with Commander Destroyer Squadron Thirteen (Captain John B. Heffernan, USN), on USS Buck, flagship, on convoy duty in the Atlantic. In October of that year, on USS Brooklyn with Captain Francis D. Denebrink, he participated in Operation TORCH (Allied landings in North and Northwestern Africa - 8 November 1942). In March 1943, while attached to Pacific Fleet Forces, he visited Noumea, Guadalcanal, Australia, and on Washington made a cruise with Vice Admiral W. A. Lee, Jr., USN. He also patrolled around Papua in motor torpedo boats, made three trips up “the Slot” on Honolulu, flagship of Commander Cruisers, Pacific Fleet (Rear Admiral W.W. Ainsworth, USN), and took part in the Battle of Kolombangara before returning to the mainland. Again in the Pacific War Area in September 1943, he participated in the Gilbert Islands operation on board USS Baltimore, under command of Captain Walter C. Calhoun, USN. For the remainder of the Winter he worked at Pearl Harbor, and in the Spring

Reviews

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

My US history teacher in high school would make us listen to recorded lectures by RADM Morison and I thought they were as dry as a desert and even more boring.

This book is not like that.

Morison’s prose is sharp, and sometimes very witty. From the Preface: “All honest efforts to throw light on historical darkness, such as this era, have my enthusiastic support. But it has fallen to my lot, working on this subject, to have read some of the most tiresome historical literature in existence. Young men seeking academic promotion, old men seeking publicity, neither one nor the other knowing the subject in depth…write worthless articles…” Morison knows this subject in depth and has mastered the source material and this book was hard to put down.

This is the first of two volumes on European voyages to America, and in this volume, RADM Morison describes the voyages to North America prior to 1600. This volume is quite comprehensive; Morison describes the initial voyages of the Norsemen to Greenland and Newfoundland, the Portuguese voyages to Labrador, Newfoundland and New England and their claims of sovereignty, Cabot, Verrazzano, Cartier and Frobisher, the first and second English colonies on the coast of North Carolina, and other voyages that have somehow never made it into school books and US history survey courses. Morison also describes some of the myths of American discovery, such as the stories of St Brendan and Prince Madoc, and mythical lands such as the Flyaway Islands and Norse exploration of Minnesota. He also takes pains to examine the evidence for such myths and explains how they could not occur.

A significant strength of this book is the use Morison makes of his own sailing experience, as well as the experience of other blue water sailors and fishermen. Throughout the book, Morison is always explaining how these early explorers navigated their way across the Atlantic. These men were very competent navigators, able to determine latitude to a remarkably accurate degree, with what we would consider crude instrumentation such as cross staffs and astrolabes. In trying to estimate longitude, their guesses were sometimes fairly close. Morison also describes the weather conditions and the length of the passage, based on winds and currents, as well as the type of vessel. He vividly describes the harsh conditions which led ships just disappearing and an incredibly high mortality rate.

“Consider also the hazards of a sixteenth-century navigator exploring an unknown coast in a square-rigged vessel, incapable of quick maneuvering like a modern sailing yacht. With an onshore wind, the discoverers had to sail close to shore if they wanted to learn anything; yet it was always risky, especially on a fog-bound coast….Every harbor you entered added a new risk…Would your anchor hold…If the wind is offshore when you sight land, you might be blown seaward again and have to beat back, which could take weeks….”

These men had no reliable charts and were exploring unknown coasts in vessels with very limited capabilities. Morison includes at the end of every chapter a detailed bibliography, as well as detailed notes on things such as navigation instruments and maps. The bibliographies extensively cover primary sources from archives all over Europe, as well as the significant secondary literature at the time of this book’s publication. Morison provides plenty of illustrations, which are referred to in the text, and after finishing the book, I was left with admiration for the accomplishments of these men.

This book was a pleasure to read, and I look forward to the second volume, as well as his work on Columbus.

[Glen Pekin · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you were told the history of the discovery of America as a child and have not paid much attention since I have to recommend reading this book. Most of the book is devoted to the 16th century and the men who explored the east coast of America in search of a passage to the orient. It is a fascinating period in history. Although this book is 40 years old I do not consider it out of date. It would have been a new book when I was in college. Morison has been criticized for failing to condemn the behavior of these explorers but I think that is a bit unfair. He mentions many cases of the mistreatment of the natives and is not the wildly pro west writer of earlier generations. Morison is not writing hagiography. The book is not a biography of the explores or a tale of their adventures. It is a map of where they explored. Morison (an Admiral and noted expert on the subject) has actually sailed the same seas in small sailboats. He knows maps - what they tell you and what they do not tell. I find it interesting that in one passage he remarks that no nation has every completely photographed it's coastline. But today I have Google Earth! Morison includes quite a number of illustrations and maps but online resources like Google Earth really help. Many of the original maps are available online although you must be careful - a lot are not exact facsimiles but are doctored to support some very partisan history. Morison denies many of these alternate histories himself. Also online are many of the original documents as well as the earlier researchers writings that Morison cites.

[jcg · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book covering the various European encounters with America, north of Pamlico Sound. The book starts with St. Brendan and other early, often imaginary, journeys across the Atlantic. Besides recounting the history, often from primary sources, the book gives a large amount of fascinating detail on the ships, rigging and supplies used in the first trans-Atlantic voyages. There are many maps reproduced to illustrate the struggle navigators had in trying to understand the shape of the new continent with limited instruments and no accurate method of calculating longitude and how tales of imaginary places, islands and kingdoms were repeated by cartographers and chroniclers.

First published in 1971, some of the information could be updated with modern scholarship, but the book still provides a solid introduction to early European contact with North America.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was introduced to Morison by Dad. He'd used one or more of his texts at Grinnell College after being demobilized from the service. He himself had spent much of WWII shipboard as an army cryptanalyst attached to the navy, usually serving in command ships. Morison, of course, was a navy man himself, the author of a fifteen-volume history of naval actions in that war.

This book, and a second volume on the Southern Voyages, covers the early history of the European "discovery" of America pretty completely. Morison's knowledge of and love for the sea and sailing is well conveyed by his engaging text.

[Michael Reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book fifty years ago when I was a freshman in college. It was the first real professional work of history I had ever read. Each chapter was followed by four or five pages of notes about the reliability of the sources available to Morison. He used his deep knowledge of sailing and ships to evaluate and judge conflicting claims and explained his reasons for his conclusions.

I remember realizing that real history wasn't just storytelling. Real history explained how we knew what happened in the past and why we should believe that a particular version of the past was what happened. I have reread the companion volume on The Southern Voyages, but I have not reread this volume since then. It did not disappoint.

This is the story of European voyages to the east coast of North America from the Carolinas up to the Artic Circle. Morison describes the voyages from the Irish monks of around 500 to the second failed Virginia Colony in 1587. He stops just before the Europeans began to settle on the East Coast.

Morison is fascinated by the details. He explains the different types of ships. He provides lists of the provisions for trips. He includes short biographies of all of the captains.

Morison loved the challenge of figuring out where the various ships landed and tracking their voyages onto the modern map. He was a sailor. He visited all of the possible landing sites. He was flown in small planes all along the coasts. He knew all of the old maps intimately. He was uniquely qualified to determine where Jacques Cartier sailed on his three voyages to Newfoundland or exactly where Martin Frobisher sailed in Hudson Bay. ("Martin Frobisher" has always been one of my favorite historical names)

Almost every northern voyage after Christopher Columbus' southern voyage in 1492 was for the purpose of finding a northern short cut to China. The coast on North America was considered a barrier to get through to get to China. The Hudson, the St. Lawrence, and many smaller rivers were sailed up in a vain attempt to get to China.

Morison is very sympathetic to the Natives of North America. He repeatedly comments on the harsh and evil treatment they received at the hands of the Europeans.

One of the amusing themes is the fishermen. Time after time royal exploration ships get to "unexplored" parts of North America only to discover that Spanish, French, Portuguese and English fisherman are there catching and salting cod. The fisherman kept the good fishing banks secret and published no maps or books.

The study of these sea voyages seems to attract cranks, conmen and charlatans. Morison enjoys whacking away at what he considers to be nonsense or silliness. He has a tart tongue. He criticizes authors and map makers by name. His summary of one theory is, "if you can believe that, you can believe anything.". About Jacques Cartier, a hero of the French Canadians, he says, "there has been a vast amount of trash written about him."

The sweep of the story is breath taking. The Norsemen settle Greenland and set up fishing camps in Newfoundland starting in 800. By 1400 they are abandoned and forgotten. Columbus sets off a race to explore and acquire the new lands. The French explore the Canadian coast and explore down the St. Lawrence River to Montreal. There are a few voyages to the current American east coast. Verrazano discovers his straights. The Virginia colonies fail. The whole story is just ready to explode when this story stops.

Morison was a brilliant historian with a huge reach. He wrote the 15-volume history of the American Navy in WW2. He wrote the Oxford History of the Unites States and the leading biography of John Paul Jones and one of the great biographies of Christopher Columbus and many other major works of history. These two books on the voyages to America were his labor of love and his finest accomplishments.

[Jeffrey Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very complete and detail oriented book. On one hand, you will be mesmerized by how much useful information is here, but on the other, some of the details are too meticulous to make for a tedious read.

He begins with some of the legends and myths that formed European thought to "what's out there" beyond the sea, and does a good job with the Norse sagas that retell the discovery of Newfoundland c. 1000, and then skips ahead to Columbus, bypassing nearly half a millennium because either nothing happened then or we don't have documentation. Fair point. He ends just prior to the establishment of Jamestown colony in 1607, with the meat of the story covering the century between Columbus and Raleigh's second Roanoke colony.

This is a book that needs to be studied, not just casually read, in order to be understood and appreciated. This book is already 50 years old as I write this review, but it's lessons are timeless.

This is an important foundational worknin understanding the history of North America.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

In The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages A.D. 500-1600 Samuel Eliot Morison covers the many fits and starts over the centuries of journeys to North America by the Norse, Spanish, English, French, Italians, and Portuguese (he explores the more steady sailing to South America in a separate volume).

On the downside, Morison isn’t holding the reader’s hand as he floods the book with nautical terminology; Chapter 5, “English Ships and Seamen 1490-1600,” especially had me searching for explanations on the Internet every other sentence. On the other hand, Morison makes it very clear when he’s giving disputed information (like where John Cabot first set foot on Newfoundland), and he not only backs up his opinions but gives alternate viewpoints as well. The book’s full of engaging maps old and new, though the author’s black and white aerial photos of Canadian islands and North Carolina beaches tend to be less than helpful.

[Eric Michels · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thorough accounting of European voyages to North America during the covered period. However, it suffers stylistically with a bit too much 'grandfatherly storytelling' where Morison extends beyond the recorded history and interjects his own assessment of what must have occurred. Interesting but I suspect that there are better/more concise tellings of this history.

[Kaelen Kinnaman · Rating 5 out of 5]

For readers unaquainted to Morrison, prepare for detailed discussions on geography, ecology and seafaring; which he synthesizes into an impressive, millennium long review of early European engagement with modern day Canada, America, Greenland and Iceland.

[Trish · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book does not read exactly like a textbook but it’s close. Definitely interesting if you have the wherewithal to get through it. Skipped the bibliographies at the end of each chapter.

[LBA · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good book about the discoveries of North America.
Well written and very well researched with a great bibliography.

[Eric Stutzman · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book and a must read for people interested in learning more about North America prior to the Mayflower landing. I received this book as a gift eight years ago, but, due in large part to moving, I had completely forgotten about it until I saw it in a box. I decided to give it a go because I love history and I love to read. The writing style is remarkable, easy to read yet not simple in its execution. The story and flow of the narrative was enjoyable and informative, the two biggest factors I look for in history books, and it broadened my worldview considerably, which I am very grateful for.

In short, this is a fantastic historic work and one which should absolutely be read by anyone, regardless of background or nation.

[Mark Singer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent summary of all known European voyages of exploration to the North American continent until the year 1600 AD. After an initial discussion of the Irish monk St Brendan, the Norsemen and assorted legendary voyages, most of the 700+ pages covers from John Cabot's voyage in the Mathew to Newfoundland in 1497 up until Sir Walter Raleigh's failed Virginia colony of Roanoke Island in 1587-1590. Not only is it exhaustively researched with an excellent bibliography after each chapter but Morison also visited many of the places mentioned in the book by land, sea and air. No shrinking violet, Morison is willing to make opinions as to where someone travelled when the evidence is obscure. I've always been fascinated by tales of exploration and this is a good book for a rainy day.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an excellent history of the European exploration of North America from the 6th-16th centuries. Starting with the voyages of St. Brendan, it concludes with the lost colony at Roanoke. The main thrust is the 100 years following the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus and the bulk of the exploration takes place in Newfoundland and Labrador. Morison actually sailed some of the routes and flew over others. He describes living conditions on the ships and colonies, navigation and relations with the natives. The edition I read included many pictures and maps. I came away with an admiration for all the explorers and what they went through exploring the new continent.

[Antoine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frobisher anyone? Efforts to plant colonies in Labrador, or on Baffin Island? Tired of the usual cast of conquistadores? Looking for a cast of explorers who were less cruel, but also (it would appear) less bright? Morison is not only a titanic historian, but also talented, graceful, and witty writer. His passion for the sea is evinced in his efforts to visit the places that these explorers did firsthand, though some are godforsaken in the extreme.

[David R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A blast from the past (1971). Admiral Morison set a tone for naval and discovery history in his time and in my opinion has never been surpassed. I reconnected with this book after many years and continue to be impressed with his rock-solid research and thoughtful analysis.

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read it as a teenager. I've always loved stories of exploration and discovery. I should read the second volume, on the southern voyages.

[Gordon Francisco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Admiral Morison at his best.